doberman pizza. a baha'i (bahai, bahá'í) blog.

Written on Feb. 25, 2010.

The air here in Da Nang is cool this afternoon, and the shade inside the dusty, cream-coloured offices of the Justice Department is a welcome change from the hot sun outside. I tap my thoughts and reflections out onto an iPhone as I wait for Quynh to finish her interview upstairs. We’re scheduled to be married in just over a week, and this set of interviews is the last legal hurdle to jump for our union to be recognized by the state – at least, besides signing a bunch more documents in triplicate.

I went under the scope first, and they brought in a translator to talk with me so they could make sense of my strange moon-language. The questions they asked were… bizarre. What’s her phone number? Her date of birth? Her email address? I guess I was expecting relevant questions, you know, like something besides what you’d put on a credit card application. But in retrospect, remembering what Quynh and I had discussed about the nature of the interview process, these banal questions make sense. They’re apparently intended to weed out arranged marriages, ones brokered through agents– proverbial “mail-order brides”.

I guess I always thought of the business of “mail-order marriages” as a big joke. I’d heard of stories regarding the practice and found them to be too unbelievable to be true. How could two people become so desperate– or morally directionless– as to reduce marriage to a mere transaction, to reduce a human being to a mere commodity? When Quynh explained to me that such “agency marriages” were a well-known (though strongly condemned) practice among Vietnamese women, I was filled with incalculable rage, so much so that I nearly fell off a speeding motorbike. it seemed to violate everything I’d ever believed about love, marriage, and human relationships.

supposedly the phenomenon is mainly driven by despair, on both sides. Quynh explained to me that many of the prospective husbands– the word “customers” brings my blood to a boil, although most are indeed customers– would be considered “past their prime”, and perhaps feel impotent to attract women in their own country. As a side note, some of Quynh’s neighbours have expressed astonished at how young I look– perhaps expecting her North American husband to be in his 50s. On the prospective bride’s side weighs the burden of percieved “marriageability”, or, in the case of a Vietnamese woman in her late 20s, the steadily dwindling levels thereof. In short, an unmarried woman over 30 years old is widely viewed as a failure. Such a perception isn’t unique to Vietnamese culture, but it’s much more pronounced here.

When Quynh and I broadcasted our engagement ceremony over the internet, we neglected to provide an explanation (or translation!) of what was happening, and most people felt a little lost watching the ceremony take place. “What are they doing? They’ve got rings… is this a wedding? I thought it was an engagement.” “There’s a lot of talking, and I can’t understand what they’re saying… when are they married?” To avoid that this time, here’s a brief overview of what we expect to happen during the wedding ceremony, that’ll be broadcast live as it happens, right here on doberman pizza (be sure to find your local time for the event so you don’t miss it—it’ll be 9 PM Eastern Time on March 5th, which is 9 AM on March 6th in Vietnam time).

Wedding programme

1. Introduction of the wedding ceremony’s program.

“Cultural” Vietnamese ceremony

2. Introduction of the two families.
3. A representative from the groom’s family presents gifts to the bride’s family.—These gifts, colloquially referred to as “red boxes”, contain traditional items—such as candles, tea, betel nuts, and so on—given to the bride’s family as a bride price, a long-standing custom in many Asian cultures.
4. A representative from the bride’s family receives and accepts the red boxes.—A running joke during our engagement was that the bride’s family had the option to refuse the gifts, meaning the groom would have to leave and come back another time with better gifts before he could receive his future bride.
5. The groom and bride present their two families.
6. The groom gives the bride the wedding bouquet.
7. Praying for ancestors.—Ancestor worship is a strongly rooted custom in many Asian cultures. In the Vietnamese custom, this includes burning candles and incense, offering fruit and flowers, and displays of veneration and respect such as bowing towards the altar, which is decorated with photos of the deceased. In a Baha’i ceremony, prayers are also offered.

Baha’i ceremony

8. Reading the opening prayer.
9. The groom offers a prayer and recites the Baha’i wedding vow.
10. The bride offers a prayer and recites the Baha’i wedding vow.—The Baha’i wedding vow is a verse revealed by Baha’u'llah: “We will all, verily, abide by the Will of God.”
11. The bride and groom exchange wedding rings.
12. An excerpt from the guidance of ‘Abdu’l-Baha on marriage is read.
13. A representative from the groom’s family confirms their acceptance of the bride as their daughter-in-law.
14. A representative from the bride’s family confirms their acceptance of the groom as their son-in-law.
15. The Chairman of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Hải Châu, Da Nang, confirms the marriage.—A Baha’i marriage must be accepted as valid by the local Spiritual Assembly.
16. Gifts from the two families, relatives and friends are offered.—Gifts (usually red envelopes) are given to the new couple at this point by those assembled.
17. Either the bride or groom thanks those assembled.
18. Reading the closing prayer.
19. Break; the bride’s family gets ready to send the bride off.

so you’ve been pondering, and wondering. and you’d really like to hear the whole story. well, here it is (slightly abridged, but here it is nonetheless).

Quynh and I met online last year, during Ridvan. The big news at that time was the Vietnamese Baha’i community’s official recognition as a religious community by its national government, a long-awaited event that ushered in a new era of religious freedom for Vietnam’s Baha’is. It was also around this time that I was considering going somewhere in the world to offer international volunteer service. After finding out that Quynh and I had close mutual friends (Craig & Geneviève, who met in Vietnam and now live in Victoriaville), I decided to make the connection, initially to find out more about Vietnam and explore service opportunities. We got along very well from the beginning, and before long, we began talking about the possibility of the two of us getting to know each other better and becoming a couple. From the summer onwards, we began to ask each other lots and lots of questions to help us along in becoming “thoroughly acquainted with the character of the other“. By the winter—after some time of becoming closer to each other through our frequent communications—it became clear to me that the only sensible thing to do was to plan on visiting Vietnam: at once to serve there (hopefully), and to meet Quynh in person. When I inquired with the Baha’i community there, they informed me that their newly-formed Spiritual Assembly required a website, and would I mind coming to work on it? With this positive response from abroad, I checked on whether my work situation would allow it, applied—and received approval—for unpaid leave, and told Quynh I was coming to see her in the spring.

After preparing for my trip during the winter months and tying up loose ends at work, I finally arrived in Vietnam (via Japan) on March 31st. Quynh stuck around to introduce me to a hectic and bustling Ho Chi Minh City—a city that needs a lot of introduction. She then continued on to Da Nang to assist the Baha’i youth there while I stayed behind to meet with a task force for management of the website. I joined her in Da Nang a few weeks later, just before the 2nd National Convention on May 1st and 2nd—just about a year after we had first met. We soon continued onwards to Hanoi together, where she was assisting the friends there to establish the foundation for their program of intensive community growth. It was while in Hanoi that we spent the most time talking together about our relationship, in person and on the phone (since we were staying in different houses). These long discussions laid down the path for us to become even closer, and eventually led me to ask for her hand in marriage on June 2nd, while taking a break in—yes that’s right—Hanoi’s Lenin Park. The mystery is solved!

On our return to Ho Chi Minh City in early July, we sought the consent of both sets of parents—hers in person, in her flat in Tan Binh District, and mine via Skype to Canada. (God bless Skype and its creators.) With consent from both parents, we set a date of August 4th for our engagement ceremony, which was held in her parents’ home in Da Nang, according to Vietnamese traditions, red boxes and all. Many of you probably wondered: what gives with all the secrecy? We never heard anything about it until the week before! Well, let’s just say that, after thorough consultation, we decided to keep it a low-profile event, and to announce the coming union after the engagement ceremony—until, of course, the news was leaked on Facebook by an overexcited sister, making the point moot and causing much rejoicing all around.

What’s in store for us now? Well, our current plans involve Quynh visiting Canada sometime during the winter (February, the month least hospitable to those hailing from hotter climates, seems most likely), and the both of us returning to Vietnam for the wedding, which will take place in Da Nang in early March, during the first few days of the 19-day Baha’i Fast. We’ll be together around a month after the wedding, after which I’ll be returning to Canada to continue my job while she continues hers—she’s working full-time for the Baha’i Faith in Vietnam until April 2011—and submits her application for a Canadian permanent resident’s visa. The eventual plan is for her to come to Canada—that is, if the Baha’is of Vietnam will allow her to go!

So there you go. There’s the story in a nutshell. A big, collective thank you to all those of you who sent us their best wishes, whether by email, on Facebook, on Twitter, by phone or in person. If we haven’t already, we’ll be sure to send you our individual thanks, and hope you will send your blessings our way in March. :)

back in Ottawa. the wind is colder here, and I have to bundle up in layers of clothes instead of spending all my time in t-shirts and shorts. it’s cloudy today, but the drab grey of the sky is set against vivid reds, oranges and yellows on the trees. Vietnam is more colourful, hands down, but it’s nice to see that Canada still puts up a fight in the beauty department. “like flowers of one garden”.

i’m seeing what’s around me with different eyes, hearing with different ears. now I can tell when someone around me is speaking Vietnamese, and I can actually understand some of what they say. I can read the signs in Chinatown (even some of the Chinese ones). I’ve taken to picking up dinner at the Thai place at the mall, because Subway just seems unappealing now. plus, of course, it reminds me of the real thing. my favourite Vietnamese restaurant (next to the Baha’i centre, no less) closed up shop, which annoyed me to no end. but there’s a new Thai place there now, so I figure I’ll go check it out next time I’m in the neighbourhood.

still adapting to being back in Canada, and more than just because of the cold weather. it’s about being plunged back into the culture of the West, a very palpably immoderate culture, a culture shaken loose of its moral basis and bereft of direction. a “lost” culture, I suppose. I fear it, because I fear becoming lost in it. being in Vietnam did me a lot of good, i think; especially in helping me discover my limitations and rely on my strengths to compensate for my weaknesses. Canada’s cool and detached (albeit friendly) social climate hasn’t done me much good, I think. despite my sociable manners in everyday life, I find I have trouble opening up to social relationships, so, left to my own, I tend not to seek out the company of others. Family-centred Vietnam, with its deeply and strongly woven fabric of social support networks, seems to have helped me stay on the outside of that self-centred bubble that the individualist Westerner blows up for himself.

sitting at home in front of a gas fire now. thank goodness it’s not cold in Vietnam. they don’t have to close their doors to stay warm.

most of the days since we came back from our trip to Sapa and Lao Cai (which deserves its own blog post) have been cruelly hot and humid, wavering between 35 and 45 degrees Celsius, prompting me to tweet the following message a few days after returning from China: “good morning Hanoi. heat is hovering around 40 C and weaker air conditioners are breaking down, including the one at home. -_-;;” After spending almost thirty years growing up in Canada, I’ve never known an agony like trying to sleep in 40-degree weather (104 F) with no air conditioning. Well, OK, trying to sleep with a kidney stone was definitely worse in terms of agony, but this one’s up there too. I spent something like four days staying with Duyen—one of the Baha’is on the Vietnamese Nat’l Spiritual Assembly—and his family, because they have pretty powerful air conditioning. That’s when I learned about the cultural characteristics of air conditioning. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in Canada, 21 degrees C (~70 F) is considered a comfortable room temperature, right? Not in Vietnam. If I set the air conditioning to 21 C I would get smacked. When I discussed it with him before going to bed, Duyen told me he would usually set the air conditioner to 30 C to be comfortable—which made me go O_O.

Above and beyond mere numerical values, people seem to use air conditioning in a different way here, too. I’ve tried setting air conditioners to 21 C here and what actually happens makes the room seem way too cold. Maybe this is because people use overpowered air conditioners in small rooms, or put the thermostats in odd places. I tried setting the temperature to 24 C for a few nights and found that it was uncomfortably cold. What’s more, the air conditioner didn’t seem to shut off at all, it just kept on blowing cold air into the room as if it was blissfully unaware of the temperature. Where I would expect a comfortable, cool-ish temperature, I feel as if I have to wrap myself up into a blanket to keep from catching a cold. All of this just leads me to ask the question: how in God’s name am I supposed to use the air conditioning here?

Speaking of catching colds, by the way, I learned the hard way that I have to be proactive in dealing with air conditioning here in Vietnam when I caught a cold from sitting in an absolutely frigid air-conditioned Vietnamese coffeeshop around the beginning of the month, which persisted until a few days ago, when I agreed to undergo a traditional Vietnamese herbal steam treatment to cure me of my lingering sniffles. It worked, but not after I dragged a persistent cough and cold through three different countries on a trip through Hong Kong, China and Macau—and this at a time just after the WHO decided to label the H1N1 swine flu crisis a pandemic, triggering automatic quarantine if you so much as cough at a border station.

Since then, I’ve been acutely aware of these wide-mouthed cooling machines lining the ceilings or rising up from the floors, and wary for those that are set to some innocuous temperature like 18 degrees C, but which, in reality, are set to Cirno-style “CRYO-FREEZE WITH ENGLISH BEEF” setting. Sigh. …why do so many things have to be so different here?

coming from a northern country with a cool, temperate climate, I’ve never really found myself wanting or needing a siesta in the afternoon. Canadians don’t really have such a concept; we work from 8:30 to 4:30, with a one-hour lunch break. Not so in Vietnam, a tropical country with a hot and humid climate to match, where people walk around with tans, parasols and conical hats, and where a lunch break of at least two hours is de rigueur. At first, it was funny seeing everyone go to sleep at two in the afternoon, or seeing a children’s class pause from 12:30 to 2:30 and seeing the adults follow suit with their younger counterparts. Now that I’ve been here for a couple of months, though—and having made the mistake of taking walks outside with the afternoon sun beating down on me—I can definitely see the value of naptime.

I love how spambots are finding my blog posts about travel and leaving non-sequitur comments like “I wish I could go there!!! I wonder how I can find cheap tickets!???!1/” and leaving URLs like ez-cheap-asia-tickets-for-real.com thinking that I won’t catch them and delete them. from now on, whenever I get comments like that, I’m going to edit the author name to something awesome like Funky George Washington or Blazing Mushroom Jets and add my own comments to what they write (read: autogenerate), for the benefit and amusement of my (actual, i.e. human) readers.

I’m in Hanoi right now. I think I’m taking about the same time getting used to it as it took in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, but Hanoi definitely has a rougher edge than the others. Dirtier, less glossy, more polluted, and definitely as noisy and chaotic as Ho Chi Minh City. At the same time, Hanoi has a lot of beautiful landmarks, like the Ho Chi Minh Museum and Mausoleum (yes, they really love Ho Chi Minh here), Hoan Kiem lake, and so on. There are a lot of trees lining the streets here, much like Da Nang. Inexplicably, I haven’t tasted the pho here yet—which is supposed to be the best in Vietnam. Actually, the fact that I haven’t tried it yet may be mainly due to the incredible hospitality of those families hosting me, meaning that just about every meal I eat is homemade Vietnamese cooking (which is more varied than I ever could have expected).

the Vietnamese—especially from the North, I think—seem to have the same concept of politeness as Persian tarof; whatever the case, they must provide hospitality to those they meet, even if it hurts. that is, if you show up unexpected to someone’s door, be prepared to be treated like a king and offered tea and sweets and fruits several times, but also be aware that you may be eating your hosts’ dinner for the night. The reverse is true: if you’re invited to dinner and you’re really not hungry, you’ll have to expect to be invited many times in succession even if you refuse each time. If you do go to dinner, you’ll have to expect your hosts to keep offering you more and more food, even if you’re full. The general rule of thumb is: if you seriously want to say “no”, you have to say it at least three times. If you refuse an invitation three times, they’ll generally understand that no, you don’t want anymore squid/tofu/water spinach/corn/fish/weird pickled things. Thankfully, having grown up in a Baha’i community full of Persian friends, I managed to get a bit of the inside scoop on tarof—institutional politeness.

If you’re staying with Vietnamese friends, understand that they will probably refuse having you pay for yourself, i.e. when it comes to helping with the food, electricity, internet, laundry, whatever bills. You’ll have to insist (again, probably at least three times) if you seriously want to contribute for the impact of your stay. However, that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t appreciate the help; they’re just very polite. Some sort of gift during or at the end of your stay is well appreciated; gifts for a family’s children are especially well received. Something that relates to your country of origin is also a good gift idea.

Since this post is largely about politeness, maybe I should write a bit about the proper use of Vietnamese pronouns, since the way you address someone here plays a huge role in politeness. Unlike the English language, which uses only the words “you” and “I/me” as second- and first-person pronouns, Vietnamese pronouns are myriad and change depending on a person’s age, your relation to them, the formality of the occasion, and so on. For example, the most common pronouns I use in addressing someone of my parents’ age (~45-65) are “chu” (uncle) and “cô” (auntie). When speaking with them, I’m required to refer to myself as “con” or “châu” (child). Since I’m almost 30, I can probably get away with addressing people of my brother and sister’s age (~31-40) as “anh” (older brother) and “chi” (older sister), and I would refer to myself as “em” (younger brother/sister). I can call anyone younger than myself “em” as well—they would call me “anh”—and I can refer to myself as “chu” to children or junior youth—they would refer to themselves as “con” or “châu”. Confused? I sure was. I’m still getting used to it. Every time I found out about a new pronoun, I buried my face in my palms in despair.

Perhaps one of the reasons I tend to be a little more introverted is that I don’t adapt too well to formality, or, at least, it makes me uncomfortable. I’d much rather refer to everybody as “dude” and address them with a simple “yo”. But, to quote the guidebook I left behind in Saigon, when you’re in Nam, do as the Viets. One of the challenges of living as a visitor in a different place is learning to be humble and to show respect to the local culture and its customs. Isn’t respect one of the signs of love?

if travelogues are supposed to be comprehensive descriptions of places one travels, touching on such pertinent information as top attractions, demographics, geography, social and cultural overviews and so on, then I think I’m pretty bad at writing them. most of what I’ve written so far seems to be accounts of me taking a motorbike ride from one end of a town to the other, to do such-and-such and visit Uncle So-and-so (no, not Uncle Ho-and-Ho). I guess that’s just what I feel comfortable writing about: what I’ve seen and experienced, told from off the top of my head as if I was speaking about it in my own rambling, roundabout and (hopefully) amusing way. if any of you have been expecting Lonely Planet, please accept my sincerest apologies.

after putting so much effort into keeping my Twitter feed up to date, I stopped and realized that I’d been neglecting my trusty old blog. (I really need to add an automated twitter widget to this thing.) I suppose my recent work on the official website of the Baha’is of Vietnam is mainly responsible for that—most of my spare brainwaves have gone into solving all the web design puzzles needed to make it a reality. It was featured at the Vietnamese National Convention—which deserves another post entirely, of course—and received hearty rounds of applause from all pleasant. I went: d(^_^)b

after my first week in Vietnam—which was basically a write-off due to exhaustion and jet-lag—it seems like it’s taken the rest of the month of April for me to start getting remotely comfortable. confidence, as you may have guessed, has been building steadily as I try new things: shopping for my own groceries, cycling through traffic on my own, building my Vietnamese vocabulary bit by bit. curiosity, a sense of wonder, and openness to new experiences have helped me immensely in adapting to these new surroundings, with its particular culture, geography, climate, and so on. I basically tossed my guidebook—sorry, Lonely Planet, I still love you guys though—out the window and entrusted my life to my Baha’i hosts and their warm, friendly and welcoming family, who took it upon themselves to take care of me and show me the ins and outs of Ho Chi Minh City and, now, Da Nang. I got a great sample of Ho Chi Minh City’s hidden cafés, tucked away into the side alleys of Phu Nhuan and Tan Binh Districts, Districts 11, 10 and 3—all with wi-fi for me to carry on with my web design work without the nuisance of weekly power cuts. I was able to visit Baha’i pioneers along the riverfront in District 2—basically a residential haven for expatriates from Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and the like—and marvel at the opulence so near to the dusty, beat-up streets of the inner city. I was able to scour the markets around Districts 1 and 3—Ho Chi Minh City’s downtown—ending up at Dan Sinh Market, a veritable gravesite full of dusty (and mostly fake) relics from the American War: reproduction helmets, uniforms, patches, even zippo lighters all greased and beat up to look their most authentic. I’ve gotten caught in Vietnam’s torrential downpours, forced to huddle under the back of a poncho as we zoomed (or attempted to zoom) back home on our trusty, rusty motorbike. And yes, I’ve had the chance to sample a wider variety of Vietnamese cuisine than I’d ever imagined existed—from four different kinds of noodles to baguettes to curry to all different kinds of meat, thankfully excluding such delicacies as dog and rat (to name a few).

there’s something undeniably appealing about Vietnam. my first impression was that of being plunged into a chaotic matrix of motorbikes whizzing past me on every side, surrounded by fluorescent shop signs in a mysterious language, with smells of gasoline, fish, incense, flowers and (???) breathing from every alley and corner. while it was foreign and frightening the first few nights, it seems to have become familiar—and slower, making the endless stream of motorbikes seem less like a frenzied race and more like the smooth, steady chaos of droplets coursing through the city’s bloodstream. the people here are friendly, and not just fake friendly like in Canada, but sincerely friendly, good-natured, happy to see you, ready to invite you in. Maybe it’s wonder that seizes them when seeing someone of my size walking through the narrow, winding streets—at 5′11″, I tower over most Vietnamese: men, women and children alike. the Vietnamese people are expressive, straightforward, and sincere; excepting social taboos, they are entirely unafraid of asking you any question or telling you honestly how they feel about any subject—including how ugly or handsome you might be. Vietnam teems with life in every shop, around every corner, from the city and the countryside alike. life is loud here—from the honking of horns and rumble of motors on the streets to the crowing of roosters, to the laughter of children and the shouts of shop owners, to the creaking of poorly oiled gates and the whine of machinery in impromptu factories—but once you get used to it, it gains a strange, familiar musicality, like an unwritten, de facto anthem.

a month into my visit to Vietnam, I’m already in love. will I want to go back to Canada at the end?

A few more choice tweets from my Twitter feed for those who still haven’t subscribed yet:

Apr. 12th

• dinner with cousins was interrupted by some sort of domestic squabble in the street outside. angry, rapid-fire vietnamese cursing involved.
• Motorbike got a flat on Hai Ba Trung x Nguyen Dinh Chieu. Chillin’ while it gets fixed by a street-corner handywoman. Oh Vietnam, I love you

Apr. 13th

• Went alone for iced coffee this AM, and was NOT, repeat, NOT ripped off. VICTORY!
• Of course, the waitress seemed to have some sort of crush on me, so maybe it didn’t really count… Oh well.

Apr. 14th

• slow getting started today, but things are coming together. just got take-out pho in little baggies for lunch :3

read more… »

Day 12 in Vietnam. Those who’ve been following my aforementioned Twitter feed know that I’ve already started to take my first few steps into independent living, including borrowing a bicycle from one of the local Baha’is—which brings me into closer contact than ever before with that most omnipresent feature of Saigon/HCMC: traffic. Thanks perhaps to my maverick bike riding style (think Paperboy), I’ve managed to do pretty well for myself in the chaotic weave of motorbikes. The video game metaphor is actually quite apt, you know. If you’ve ever played one of those games where enemies are coming at you from all directions at the most ridiculous frequency and wondered who in their right minds would create such a difficult game, you might want to come ride a bike in Ho Chi Minh City, to realize that, in fact, there actually are such places in the real world. and to think that, until last year, there was no such thing as a helmet law in Vietnam…

Speaking of bikes, I biked down to the Baha’i Centre yesterday in order to make some calls—home internet got cut off for some reason, and my newfangled Vietnamese cell phone is on the blink (bad battery, I think). Once there, I cooled down for a few minutes and then made plans to meet Tahirih, my contact for the National Spiritual Assembly’s website, in about an hour to discuss things. Where? Well, why not District 1—downtown? Sure. Except that it appears that the trip from the Baha’i Centre to District 1 is about half an hour long on a motorbike (hence, even longer on a bicycle). Oops. After a little while’s worth of thinking, I ended up asking for a motorbike ride from Chi, one of the Baha’is at the centre, and managed to get there in time anyway. We met at a nice little French bistro—yup, French influence in Vietnam is still strong. Tahirih brought along her kids, who ordered pizza and ice cream and played with Chi while we talked web design and determined what had to be done in the next week or so, before I leave HCMC for Danang next week. After the meeting was done, we motorbiked back through considerably thicker traffic to reach the Baha’i Centre once again, and after taking a few more minutes to cool down, I biked back home on my little one-gear clinker, doing my paperboy schtick through a throng of motorbikes, cars, buses, carts, horses(!!), and just random confused people.

I think I love this place… but it’s a strange kind of love.

For those of who aren’t yet subscribed to my Twitter feed, here’s what you’ve been missing for the past week:

Apr. 1st

• AAAHHHHHH IT’S FREAKING HOT
• touched down in Saigon a couple of hours ago, everything seems to be ok so far. i’m off to bed in a sec. look for photos tomorrow.
• GOOD MORNING VIETNAM! ok, I know you all wanted me to say that, so now it’s out of the way. the roosters outside do help add a little colour
• i suppose i could pull an april fool’s prank of some sort but reality is just much cooler than jokes right now

Apr. 2nd

• the visit to KFC (Gà rán Kentucky) in Saigon was funny. rice? with gravy on it? wow. and yeah, I know, you’d think I’d go for phở first off.
• the noise here is amazing. from 7 AM to 10 PM it’s kids, roosters, motorcycles, street vendors, TVs, radios, pretty much anything
• reading and re-reading a Baha’i pioneering doc about culture shock; all the symptoms seem to apply. praying for serenity while i adjust.)

read more… »

Expand this post to see several videos of motorbiking and traffic in Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon). Vietnam positively swarms with motorbikes, and Ho Chi Minh City, particularly, is known as the world’s motorbike capital.

read more… »

Day 8 in Vietnam so far, and the initial shock of arrival has subsided. The first week has been a bit rough-and-tumble, but thanks to the efforts of my hosts, it’s been much, much smoother than it could have been—indeed, easier than I had hoped. Everyone is so gracious and friendly here. Host and national institute coordinator Quynh spent the first week helping me get settled in and see the city, giving me my first real taste of motorbike travel. The first few times riding a motorbike through the chaotic streets of Saigon was a little scary, but I feel like I’ve warmed up to it quite nicely now. The first week was full of visits to the local Baha’is, going to exotic (neighbourhood Vietnamese eateries) and less exotic (KFC, aka Gà Rán Kentucky—whatever you do, don’t compare Colonel Sanders to Ho Chi Minh) restaurants for lunch and dinner, having home-cooked Vietnamese breakfasts consisting of rice and—well, just about anything. I’m gradually starting to be able to walk on my two feet here. Although it’s definitely not yet “functional”, I’m starting to achieve a very basic command of the Vietnamese language—at least enough to be able to make basic needs known without getting beat up or slapped. Just this afternoon, I was able to secure a bicycle to get around on, thanks to the generosity of one of the local Baha’is. As well, again thanks to host Quynh’s effort, I now have a Vietnamese bank account with an ATM card, which I should be able to use anywhere in Vietnam (unlike the hoops to be jumped through/potential risks when using credit cards).

About a week into my stay here, it dawned on me that several of my cherished tools—phrasebook, guidebook, and so on—have been failing me somewhat. For example, my guidebook focuses lots of attention on Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon’s glamorous District 1, where most foreigners hang out, and many locals prefer to avoid because of the high prices. But it focuses almost no attention on the Tan Binh district—where I’m staying—which starts at about a 15-20 minute drive west from District 1. Even District 11, the home of the Baha’i Centre, just south of Tan Binh, is underrepresented. It dawned on me that these books were written for regular foreigners, those on business or simply pleasure-seekers on their way through Southeastern Asia—and that I was not one of those regular foreigners. I think I realized something was amiss when I saw the string of European and American tourists being promenaded throughout the streets outside HCMC’s famed Post Office building on pedal-powered rickshaws—cyclos—on an evening’s visit to District 1. I can’t really explain just what I felt as I watched them from the curb, besides the distinct feeling that I was not one of them. It was partly satisfying, I suppose, and partly spooky, as if I was standing beside myself, looking on quietly.

All that being said, I guess you could say it’s fairly obvious: I’m not your average traveller. Although I’m experiencing many of the same feelings as a regular traveller—disorientation, wonderment, anxiety, curiosity, excitement—regular travellers can’t always go to a faraway country and find people—like the Baha’is—who can welcome them with open arms, as if they were family. for the privilege of being here, in close contact with people, sharing the same space and eating the same food, I am so very grateful. for the chance to give back something to those who have welcomed me so warmly into their midst and into their hearts—be it a website or helping them practice a little bit of English—I am equally grateful.

oh vietnam, you strange, noisy, mesmerizing place, you. vietnam, with your choking heat and cooling rains, your bright and lively flowers, your swarms of motorbikes, your streets lined with shops that spill their innards onto the sidewalks, peppered with price tags. friends and acquaintances tell me you have stolen their hearts. will you steal mine just as easily?

my first impression of Vietnam was from the air while flying in: an unusually dark panorama creeping in beneath us, with ghostly strings of bluish light, sparsely blotched with the aggressive orange usual in Western cities. For the most part, fluorescent light rules here. Our plane rolled smoothly onto the tarmac at Tan Son Nhat Airport and into our gate; from the first moment stepping out of the plane, I could feel the heat—strangely like the oppressive heat that overtakes Ottawa on certain (rare) summer days. passing through immigration and customs was uncanny in its ease; I’d expected more random hassles—or, at least, I’d expected them to talk to me. I wheeled my luggage out into the humid night, and surprisingly enough, found my friend Quynh—who I had thought was in Da Nang—waiting there, along with her brother Nu. they shepherded me into a taxi, which carried us through the chaotic streets and gave me my first glimpse of the notorious Vietnamese traffic. arriving outside their neighbourhood, I unloaded my luggage as we made our way down a prohibitively narrow and winding street, past thin, tall apartments with bars on their windows and doors, past a shop where, even at this late hour, people who looked about my age were working on sewing machines, making t-shirts (I instinctively felt some “western guilt” here). Arriving at a set of locked gates, Quynh and brother quickly unlocked them and introduced me to my home for at least the next month: a three-story-tall (four stories if you count the door that leads onto the roof) apartment with a steep staircase, which was a minor struggle to manage with my one bulging suitcase.

the first night in Vietnam was quick—my plane landed at around 10:45 PM local time, and I ended up in bed a little past midnight—so I didn’t have the chance to see much. rest assured, though, that the next few days were a positive whirlwind. read more soon—just keep an eye on this blog.

I’ve slept only about three hours out of the past twenty-four. it kinda sucks. most of them were spent frantically packing my bags in my devastated (ex-?)apartment in Ottawa. I stayed up printing out last-minute photocopies and sending emails to Japan, leaving about three hours (actually closer to two) of productive sleep before waking up and making my way (thanks to mom and dad) over to the airport to catch my flight to Chicago. I’d say something dramatic like “this is where the real tests begin” but actually the tests began when I first decided to go to Vietnam. whenever someone arises to serve God in some way, tests begin immediately to prove their mettle, sometimes little by little, sometimes in huge clumps—and sometimes exponentially as that proverbial “last minute” approaches.

oh look all the pilots are boarding the plane now, clad in black monkey suitsuniforms with pretty gold trim. appropriate enough since this flight looks very much like a class act. now the flight attendants are boarding and they too look like a class act. I’ve heard some good things about Japan Airlines and I have the sneaking suspicion those things are about to be proven right. That’s a little more than I can say about the American Eagle flight from Ottawa. that one was okay, I guess. it’s just that the plane we were on seemed to be designed and built with smurfs in mind. the Japan Airlines plane (see photo attached to this post) makes it look like a bug in comparison. in fact, I’m pretty sure this next plane eats little tiny commuter planes for breakfast with noodles and miso soup. I’m okay with that.

I should probably be catching up on sleep right about now, you know. I just don’t think it’ll do me a whole lot of good to sprawl onto the floor of the waiting lounge or stretch out onto a cluster of seats. i’ve been told my assigned seat has good elbow room; that sounds good. I’m hoping I can grab some shut-eye on the thirteen-hour-long flight across the Pacific. The Pacific seems like the perfect ocean to cross on a long airplane flight: nothing to see for hundreds of miles outside your window except, uh, lots and lots of nothing. perfectly boring, and hopefully eminently sleep-inducing. except for the offers of drinks and meals at regular intervals, of course. Instead of sleeping on the Chicago flight, I brushed up on some Japanese and practiced some phrases that should come in useful when passing through customs, you know, like “I have nothing to declare”, “thank you very much”, “may my life be a sacrifice to your ancestors”, and so on. gotta make a good impression, you know. …I guess this is what happens when I don’t get enough sleep.

today was my last day at work before the trip! I’m feeling nervous about the preparations, as I mentioned yesterday, but at least I know that things are in good hands at work. there’ll be a nice little lunchtime farewell next Tuesday, I’ll drop by again the day before leaving, and that’s it until September.

Tonight, a special celebration happens, called Naw-rúz; while it also happens to be the Persian new year (as recently attested to by President Obama), it’s also the Bahá’í new year, symbolizing spiritual renewal and the dawn of a new day for humankind. Apart from having a great time there, I’ll be performing on stage during the artistic portion, as well as offering a prayer set to an improvised melody (much like the tracks from the prayercast I post here). Before that, I’ll be joining a band of friends—almost 80 of them, in fact—in breaking the Fast for the last time this year, at Saffron Restaurant on Rideau St. Good friend, former co-worker and fellow web dude Martin used his wheeling-and-dealing talents to secure a buffet dinner for 80 people, including unlimited kebab (koobideh beef, joojeh chicken) and Persian rice. I’m definitely looking forward to it, along with the other 79 I’m sure.

I have to say though, I’ll miss the Fast. For some reason it seemed unusually sweet this year, although it was also hard. I felt as though I was able to connect with God through prayer in a way that I don’t always feel able to. Maybe it’s the influence of preparing to move out of my apartment and leave for Vietnam that’s been helping me become more detached from my surroundings, my possessions, and the like. You know, like packing up your life into a set of luggage and leaving behind the rest. Whatever it is, I’ve found it… especially sweet, in that it seems to have allowed me to deepen my spiritual experience during the past month, helped me to leave behind attachment to material things. Awesome.

Speaking of material things, it’s getting close to dinner time. Happy Naw-rúz and a glorious springtime to you all, materially and spiritually.

time has flown by as my departure from Canada becomes imminent. there are no more second chances now, no more excuses to put things off; procrastination is deadly. even though I say that, of course, there are still a bunch of things I still haven’t gotten to on my list of Tasks Of Great Importance. one of them is to pay my last couple of bills and call to cancel my cable, phone and so on (seeing as I’m moving out of my apartment as well). yeah, that’s a lot of things to do all at once, alright. It feels like I’ll barely have the time to finish tying up all the loose ends here before I have to fly out—which happens next Friday, the 27th.

I must admit I’ve had my head in the clouds a little, anticipating the trip and visiting so many new places—that’s normal, right? Having to plan out an itinerary for myself that spans five months means that I have to think ahead… in fact, I think I’ve been doing more thinking ahead than I’ve ever done in my life. Anticipating, anticipating, sometimes patiently, sometimes not. Getting things done one step at a time, checking things off my ample to-do list as they come, adding more as I go. I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve been able to get accomplished, actually. I suppose it helps that I have several people—my parents, good friends, the folks from HR at work—helping to remind me of all the things I need to take care of before going. Shots are all done, but I need to pick up a bit more medication for the trip (anti-malarials, that kind of thing). Visa’s done, and it got done surprisingly quickly at that, thanks to the kind folks at the Vietnamese embassy. Tickets are all booked, including stopovers in Tokyo each way to allow me to rest a little; thanks go to Laurie at Bytown Travel for helping me get that set up.

So what’s left? Cleaning up and moving out of the apartment, of course; doing my taxes for the past year; saying my goodbyes to friends and co-workers; packing my bags; gathering up cash, traveller’s cheques, and other essentials; contacting credit card companies to let them know where I’ll be (and to expect purchases from strange places); oh and so many other little things I was hoping to finish up before leaving but am I going to have time to do them all even if the clock is ticking down ohcrapohcrap… even with all this stuff to do though, I don’t really feel nervous yet—excited is more like it. I can’t wait to get on the plane and go, to end up in a completely different place. There’s just something about travel that’s given me a sort of permanent wanderlust ever since I was young. Not just the act of travelling, either—the anticipation. The sweet knowledge that you’re about to embark upon the journey of a lifetime, one that will lead you across to the other side of the planet for five whole months. Wondering aloud and quietly, what will this bright, bold and beautiful future bring?

With all these thoughts about the future, I have to pray just to keep myself grounded in the present. Thinking ahead is fun, but right now is where everything happens. So that’s where I am—right here at home (at the mall again, actually—hah), doing the most I can right now as my efforts and God’s confirmations will allow. As a closing note, I feel as though I’m starting to understand this concept of “confirmation”—you take the first step and God gets you running. Seeing this trip across the world come together piece by piece has helped show me what it means.

lol, blogging at the mall.

the Fast has gone pretty well so far, except that I’m really tired—but then, that was happening since before the Fast. I think winter, short of making me depressed this year, has left me in rather pitiful physical shape. maybe I can blame the bus strike for not letting me get to the gym regularly… uh, anyway, excuses aside… I spent a couple of days at the beginning sick with a sinus cold, and thus unable to fast. It always really irritates me when that happens. shortly afterwards, I paid a visit to Craig and Geneviève in Victoriaville, which is always like a drink of life-giving waters. we had a chance to chat about my upcoming trip to Vietnam, and they gave me a lot of tips and encouragement about Vietnam and travel in general.

For the rest of you out there who are fasting, I strongly recommend you follow the blog nineteen days, maintained by a couple of Baha’is with photographic skills and an eye for the poetic. They’re into their second year of blogging their fast and are now featuring guest bloggers each day this year, making it an even more interesting and engaging read.

That’s it for now… off to help with Ruhi Book 3.

a night of cold, blowing wind follows a quiet, gloomy friday’s worth of work. winter stubbornly spends its last few nominal weeks like an angry tyrant who knows his demise looms and who is bent on causing as much hardship as possible to his long-suffering subjects before that fateful day. on some streets, there are still puddles sitting, liquid and rippling; on others, strong gusts have thrown them up and frozen them into rough, icy cobbles.

funny how my heart is so warm in the midst of all this ice, so glad in the midst of all this gloom. i have my sights set on a much warmer place indeed, and soon, after less than a month’s worth of waiting now, for the first time in my life, I’ll be gone to live in the warmest place I’ll have ever been: Vietnam.

really a five-month-long visit more than any sort of immigration, I’ll be there from roughly the 1st of April ’til the 1st of September, visiting newfound friends and making more, seeing sights, experiencing the culture—and, perhaps above all, taking the opportunity to serve humanity in some of the small ways I’ve learned to serve. namely, I’ve been asked to help the Baha’is of Vietnam put together a website for their national community, a public face to help their country and the world to get to know them better. I’m looking forward to it—it’ll be an exciting project to be sure, one that’ll test my ability to manage projects and determine customer requirements, as well as my intercultural consultation skills. Baha’i consultation is the same wherever you go in the world, but communicating well across cultures is more than just your regular task, requiring a greater level of patience, sensitivity, wisdom and love. I only hope God will confirm my efforts.

i wonder about my readiness for this period of service, ever since i became burnt out after a two-year period of service in the province of Québec several years ago. Then, like now, I set out around Naw-Rúz, hoping that the budding springtime (still obscured by the usual remnants of a Canadian winter) would herald a spiritual springtime within me—a long-awaited rejuvenation that I hoped would take my frightened, self-absorbed consciousness and raise it to a level that God might deem acceptable. Seven years of lessons later, I feel as though much of the darkness that surrounded me has lifted—and a great deal of naiveté replaced with a deeper understanding of God and spiritual things—but still I feel fear, hesitation, trepidation. I wonder how my mood will fare, how my bruised—yet healing—psyche will hold up to the coming stress. I wonder how I will react to the challenge of service—with fear and doubt, or with courage and faith? I wonder how I will react to the people—will I choose to retreat into my shell and hide my heart from those I meet, or will I dare to open up my soul to them? will I be cold, like the ice that slowly coats the streets of Ottawa? or will the Vietnamese summer—and God’s love and blessing—warm my heart?

guess what? I’m going to Vietnam. No, I wasn’t drafted. I’ve hooked up with the Baha’i community over there and, if everything goes as planned, I’m going to be helping them create a website for their newly recognized community. I should be leaving in the spring (mid-March?) and coming back to Canada for Labour Day—basically spending the summer there. It’s not exactly a snowbird trip is it? Oh well. It’s not so much about having a vacation as it is about service (although it will be nice to skip out a little early from the Ottawa winter this year). There aren’t many details to share right now, because they’re presently under discussion; I’ll be posting more as I know more. Suffice to say, though, that this blog should start getting more and more interesting in the next few months as I prepare.

shame on me for not posting about this earlier! the Baha’i community of Vietnam, after many years of patience, elected its National Spiritual Assembly this year for the first time since the mid-1970s. the procedures for recognition were set in motion several years ago, coming to a head at Naw-Ruz of 2007, when the Vietnamese government issued a certificate to the Baha’i community authorizing their operations in the country. The final certificate, granting full recognition as a religious community, was presented to the community this July. From the Baha’i World News Service:

A certificate was presented to representatives of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Vietnam at a ceremony on 25 July.

It was the final act in a series of steps that included the election four months ago of the Baha’i Assembly – itself a landmark event in that it was the first time in many years that elections for the governing council were held. Government representatives were on hand to observe the balloting.

[...] The official government news agency reported the event and referred to comments by the chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is, Mr. Nguyen Thuc: “(He) said the Government’s recognition of the Baha’i religion ‘charts a new course of development for the entire Baha’i community’ and motivates followers to make more contributions to social and humanitarian activities and to drive to preserve traditional spiritual values.”

Accolades and congratulations have followed steadily from government, institutions and sister Baha’i communities throughout the world, with one of the latest expressions of praise coming from Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister, Truong Vinh Trong, who “expressed his appreciation of the Baha’i Faith’s philosophy and its active contributions to the community”.